Scorned clubs would have behaved the same way
HEARTS and Partick Thistle are so furious at being the victims of selfinterest that from now on they are only going to look after themselves.
And that, folks, is what is known in Scottish parlance as “wan o’ them”.
Having been shafted (great word) by their fellow clubs who by and large were looking after themselves during the worst financial time in our game’s history, these two martyrs will seek their revenge by acting just like those who voted for them to be relegated when the season was prematurely ended.
Two wrongs do make a right, after all.
And at this time, quite naturally and obviously, we turn to the cosmologist Martin Rees. Old Marty – I assume that was how he was known – made a great argument for the belief in just because something didn’t happen, it definitely would have happened even if it didn’t.
“Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence,” he opined. Clever man.
Now 78, he goes by the title of Lord Rees of Ludlow. His thoughts on science has made him something of a legend in the academic community. His thoughts on Scottish football, alas, he has kept to himself.
If you agree with the intelligence of this gentleman’s work – and why would you not – he says, in layman’s terms, that with near complete certainty you can say what a person or persons would do had fate not stopped them.
For example, just because Adolf Hitler didn’t make it to Britain doesn’t mean to say that even thickos like me could work out that it wouldn’t have been good for us if he had. Sightseeing was the last thing on his mind.
This brings me, eventually and after much googling, to the fate which has befallen two of our finest football clubs.
Hearts and Partick Thistle were shafted. I have been consistent on this and see no reason to change my stance. There are more clubs which believe they have been done over but some have a better claim to this than others.
But it is these two which I and many feel great sympathy with. If the season had to be stopped then neither should directly affected them and any chairman who claims otherwise is at it.
Spare me this claptrap. Throw a bucket of water over the burning martyrs. Hearts and Partick Thistle would never have risked themselves for the ‘good of the game’.
Anyone with half a brain knows this. Even though it didn’t happen, we all know how these two would have behaved had their respective seasons gone better.
I would be happy to see the evidence of past decisions made by either when their own interests were bravely cast aside because the benefit of the many was more important.
The talk coming out of both Tynecastle and Firhill since Monday’s hardly surprising decision has been embarrassing. Thistle have told “their family” never to forget what has happened, while over in the capital, Ann Budge has called the decision a shambles and spoke about all that counts is winning the war.
Really, war? That will go down with the hard of thinking but such rhetoric is unbecoming of the Hearts chairwoman.
Oh, and all those gloating fans who believe Hearts, Thistle, Stranraer, Rangers and the rest have acted like children refusing to accept their punishment; your club would have done exactly the same had they been in the same position.
AS a young freelance, a player I would pester on a weekly basis was David Hagen who then was enjoying a fine spell with Falkirk.
This incredibly nice and annoyingly good-looking bloke would always take the call and give me an interview.
Hagen died last week from MND at 47. An unspeakable tragedy. Rest easy, big man.